GM's Joinville Engine plant earns LEED Gold certification

General Motors' engine plant in Joinville, Brazil has earned Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. It is the first automotive plant in South America to become LEED Gold
certified, the result of investments in sustainability when construction began two years ago.

The Joinville facility joins five other GM LEED-certified facilities in China and the United States.

"The environmental performance of this plant has been on our minds since Day One of construction," said Santiago Chamorro, President, General Motors do Brasil. "This operation embodies GM's outlook on integrating sustainability into every decision we make - from building efficient facilities to designing efficient vehicles."

The facility embraced several environmental processes to reach this point.

A 350-kilowatt solar array powers plant-floor and office lighting, avoiding 10.5-tons of CO2 - the equivalent of energy consumed by 220 homes in Brazil annually. The solar power is also used to heat 15,000 liters of water per day, reducing natural gas costs and avoiding 17.6-tons of CO2 emissions annually. It is the first solar energy system in the Brazilian automotive industry.

The plant also uses reverse osmosis - a process that pushes water through a filter to eliminate particles - to filter water from recycled treated waste water for toilet flushing and industrial uses such as cooling towers. The plant saves the equivalent of nine Olympic-sized swimming pools - 22.9-million liters per year. It's the first application of its kind at an automotive facility.

Helping Joinville earn its certification were tactics like harvesting natural light and using filtering gardens to treat sewage.

"Joinville's environmental activity is aligned with everything we stand for as a company," said Mike Robinson, GM Vice-President of Sustainability and Global Regulatory Affairs. "From the use of solar power to water conservation, this is how we want all of our facilities to aspire to operate."

GM's Brazil operations share a commitment to environmental sustainability. From 2005 to 2013, its facilities reduced water consumption per vehicle produced by 58 per cent and energy use by 36 per cent per vehicle produced. During the same time period, non-recyclable waste - kilograms per vehicle produced - was reduced by 76 per cent. In 2013, all Brazil sites combined composted more than 1,500-tons of organic waste from facility cafeterias.

The Joinville plant is working to achieve landfill-free status, under which no waste from daily operations would be sent to landfill. When certified, it would join six other South America facilities and more than 100 total GM global facilities to have earned this designation. With more landfill-free facilities than any other automaker, the company is well on its way to its commitment of 125 landfill-free facilities by 2020.

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